The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [79]
“There must be more to it than what you’ve told us,” he said gently.
“That’s the point, there isn’t really. I just felt there was something wrong about the whole setup. And then I talked to another woman, a Mrs. Davis—”
“You talked to a Mrs. Davis—yes?”
Lejeune’s voice remained quite unchanged.
“She wasn’t happy about things, either.”
“And why wasn’t she happy?”
“She’d overheard something.”
“What had she overheard?”
“I told you I couldn’t be definite. She didn’t tell me in so many words. Only that from what she had overheard, the whole setup was a racket of some kind. ‘It’s not what it seems to be.’ That is what she said. Then she said: ‘Oh well, it doesn’t affect us. The money’s very good and we’re not asked to do anything that’s against the law—so I don’t see that we need bother our heads about it.’”
“That was all?”
“There was one other thing she said. I don’t know what she meant by it. She said: ‘Sometimes I feel like Typhoid Mary.’ At the time I didn’t know what she meant.”
Lejeune took a paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Do any of the names on that list mean anything to you? Did you call upon any of them that you can remember?”
“I wouldn’t remember.” She took the paper. “I saw so many…” She paused as her eye went down the list. She said:
“Ormerod.”
“You remember an Ormerod?”
“No. But Mrs. Davis mentioned him once. He died very suddenly, didn’t he? Cerebral haemorrhage. It upset her. She said, ‘He was on my list a fortnight ago. Looked like a man in the pink of condition.’ It was after that that she made the remark about Typhoid Mary. She said, ‘Some of the people I call on seem to curl up their toes and pass out just from having one look at me.’ She laughed about it and said it was a coincidence. But I don’t think she liked it much. However, she said she wasn’t going to worry.”
“And that was all?”
“Well—”
“Tell me.”
“It was some time later. I hadn’t seen her for a while. But we met one day in a restaurant in Soho. I told her that I’d left the C.R.C. and got another job. She asked me why, and I told her I’d felt uneasy, not knowing what was going on. She said: ‘Perhaps you’ve been wise. But it’s good money and short hours. And after all, we’ve all got to take our chance in this life! I’ve not had much luck in my life and why should I care what happens to other people?’ I said: ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about. What exactly is wrong with that show?’ She said: ‘I can’t be sure, but I’ll tell you I recognised someone the other day. Coming out of a house where he’d no business to be and carrying a bag of tools. What was he doing with those I’d like to know?’ She asked me, too, if I’d ever come across a woman who ran a pub called the Pale Horse somewhere. I asked her what the Pale Horse had to do with it.”
“And what did she say?”
“She laughed and said ‘Read your Bible.’”
Mrs. Brandon added: “I don’t know what she meant. That was the last time I saw her. I don’t know where she is now, whether she’s still with C.R.C. or whether she’s left.”
“Mrs. Davis is dead,” said Lejeune.
Eileen Brandon looked startled.
“Dead! But—how?”
“Pneumonia, two months ago.”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us, Mrs. Brandon?”
“I’m afraid not. I have heard other people mention that phrase—the Pale Horse, but if you ask them about it, they shut up at once. They look afraid, too.”
She looked uneasy.
“I—I don’t want to be mixed up in anything dangerous, Inspector Lejeune. I’ve got two small children. Honestly, I don’t know anything more than I’ve told you.”
He looked at her keenly—then he nodded his head and let her go.
“That takes us a little further,” said Lejeune when Eileen Brandon had gone. “Mrs. Davis got to know too much. She tried to shut her eyes to the meaning of what was going on, but she must have had a very shrewd suspicion of what it was. Then she was suddenly taken ill, and when she was dying, she sent for a priest and told him what she knew and suspected. The question is, how much did she know? That list of people, I should say, is a